Oh, yeah, don’t get me wrong, my pocket EDC isn’t minimalist. I have ADHD, so I find that I work best if I can depend on a medium number of items always being with me. A few less things for my brain to keep track of, because they are always there.

Lots of types of plastic. Sure you might be able to hand them off to someone else, but there’s no guarantee they are not just headed for a landfill.

Human Centipede begs to differ.

Some recording programs can do transcripts as well. They’re not perfect, you have to tidy them up, but it is nice to not need to go back and do the transcribing manually.

Even then it’s a little dicey.

Usually there is cheese and other food on it. I’ve never seen one that can be recycled.

I love OSM in so many ways, but unfortunately its address resolver is kinda garbage compared to Google Maps. For example, the string “10392 SE 23, portland, or, usa” correctly resolves to what I meant, “10392 SE 23rd Ave, Milwaukie, OR, USA” in Google Maps. OSM needs the exact city (Milwaukie is a suburb of Portland) and the “rd” on 23 to resolve.

I have really fallen in love with my carbon steel skillet for general purpose cooking, including more delicate food like eggs. It took some time to get the hang of cooking with it and I still haven’t quite gotten the seasoning right, but it’s a sturdy piece. I also have a cast iron skillet, but it’s much heavier and I’ve never been able to get it to cook eggs. Since I started using the carbon steel for eggs, I have basically stopped using our non-stick pan.

I actively use a couple of appliances with a nonstick interior, an air fryer and a rice cooker. I just try to treat them very nicely but I know they won’t last forever. At least the parts are trays or liners that can be replaced separately from the appliance.

I also have a very nice 3 ply stainless steel pan, but I find that I don’t pull that out as much. Maybe because I’m usually not making the sorts of recipes that it excels with, like ones that use the fond to make a pan sauce.

I can see wanting to keep it very minimalist, but I’ve slimmed down my pockets pretty well already so I have some space to spare. Besides, the flashlight I have is about the size of the AA-sized battery it uses, so I find the benefits outweigh the slight cost.

My father got a toaster at a garage sale back in the 1970’s. That was the toaster I grew up with. When I was moving out, my parents happen to be replacing it, so I asked for it. I did some research and it is a GE toaster from the mid 1950’s. I have used it for the past ten years and it’s still going strong. It’s maybe a bit small for some slices, but it’s hard to argue with 70 years of near continuous service.

I have a pocket flashlight, the Acebeam Rider. The smartphone lights are handy, but they drain the battery. The flashlight has an AA-sized rechargeable battery, but it can also use regular AA batteries as a backup. That is important during an emergency, when power might be cut off but AA batteries are pretty common. It has 4 different levels. The top level is pretty bright for a pocket flashlight, while the ultra-low level has a hypothetical runtime of 58 hours. And it was fairly cheap, so if I drop it somewhere it is not as problematic as losing my expensive smartphone.

Stackable prep bowls for the kitchen. They’re about $6 a piece and I have eight of them. I got sick of constantly running out of bowls when I was doing things like chopping lots of veggies for a soup or marinating tofu. I expect to reach the end of my “usefulness” before they do.

Similarly, I have a set of 12 rounded stacking mixing bowls. I use them a lot for tossed salads, but they are also useful for dough.

I got a kite from REI’s returns sale. The people before me didn’t like the color. I have enjoyed that kite for almost 20 years.

Oh, I totally get it, I loved it too. I just don’t think it will stick in quite the same way when people don’t have lyrics to attach to the song. Like, I can’t play it at karaoke night.

Saright but it feels saright.

Dragostea Din Tei

I don’t think that one outlasts the next couple decades. Yeah, it’s fun and the lyrics are weird, but Romanian isn’t all that widely spoken, so the vast majority of the world population cannot sing it.

Leatherman does engraved knives. I have mine engraved with my name and cell number.

Donald Ducking?

Flashlights are small and cheap. Drop one down a crack? Oh, well, at least it was my $30 flashlight instead of my $800 cell phone. They also can be turned down to improve battery life. Mine has days of battery life at its lowest.

Left pocket: Phone, earbuds, hand sanitizer

Right pocket: Minimalist wallet, keys, flashlight, pocket knife, mask

The flashlight is a ACEBEAM Rider RX with an AA-sized rechargeable lithium battery that can be swapped for AA in an emergency. The keys include a Yubikey and thumb drive with Ventoy. Because Portland is at risk for a megathrust earthquake, I carry a whistle in case I am trapped under debris.

I also have a pouch with office supplies, eyeglass cleaner, and so on.